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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Van 1: Hangin Tough

Ok...so last weekend was the EPIC tour of NUUN Kids on The Block through Ragnar Northwest Passage! Before I go into a recap of the 200 miles, I want to reintroduce you to me van mates {now friends!!!}|, because the post I wrote earlier really doesn't do them just justice!

First off, we had our fearless leader{arg!} and driver: Mason, Chief Hydration Officer at NUUN! Mason was great at making sure we had opportunities to cheer on our teammates during their runs and got us to all of our exchanges in time {there were only a couple close calls}. He even joined one of our runners for a night run! And perhaps most importantly, he made sure we were caffeinated by getting us to a Starbucks at all of the major exchanges {priorites}

Chief Navigator

I was runner #1, and handed off to Lauren {you will see some serious hand-off photos in posts to come!} Lauren is seriously so fun, and sweet; I felt like I had known her forever! She is extremely social, and knew half of the people on the route, and was a RagnarNWP expert, which came in handy a couple of times!

Checkin em off!

Corinne {friend of Meghan} was a total lifesaver, and stepped in about 2 weeks before the race, because one of our runners was injured! She is not a blogger or on twitter {until she ran her first leg and we took matters into our own hands ;) } so she really didn't know any of us at all; but you would never of known it! She fit right in {I don't think we overwhelmed her too much} and took on one of the tougher legs, 8 miles, pretty much all uphill, with no van support! Corinne dominated the hills and rocked her night run, ending it with a loud "we've got the right stuff, baby!" During her night run, we saved her from the 4 legged gorilla man...we had her back!

So happy to be done!

Katherine, Mason's wife, flew home for 3-days from her vacation in Michigan to run with us and totally ROCKED it! She recently took up running {she is an avid tennis player}, and seriously dominated the roads from Blaine to Whidbey Island with lots and lots of roadkill! She was also our co-pilot, and made sure we got where we always got where we needed to be! She {almost} used her black belt skills to protect Corinne from gorilla man...that't what teammates do!

Becky, aka, #thriftydrunkpuppet and NUUN tattoo artist {I was demoted from the job}, was seriously HI-LAR-IOUS!! Up until Thursday before the race, we weren't sure if she would be joining us as a runner or just a cheerleader, but she ended up doing both! Becky was the one always losing stuff in the van {packing and unpacking her stuff several times}, a goodeater {always clearing her plate}, the one who taught us what a bronie is, and earned the title of drunk puppet {she tells the story best here...you have to read it!!!}. I later changed her name to thrifty drunk puppet {she is always looking for a good deal and doesn't like to spend money}when following the race she borrowed a friends boot for her foot and bought crutches {that are too big} from the Goodwill! I think she is diagnosing her injury with these! Becky was SO excited to be running, after not running for 2 months, and always had a huge smile on her face!!

Check out the NUUN medal!

Becky Drew a picture of herself!

Meghan earned the Hangin Tough award...two days before the relay she tweeted that she wasn't feeling well, and started chugging NUUN All Day! Unfortunately, the sore throat didn't get better, only worse! But she rallied through, and spent a lot of time sleeping/resting in the back between her legs! She was able to go home, shower, and take a nap at the first major exchange, which made a big difference. Despite being sick {she could only communicate by whispering, and found out after that she had bronchitis} she got out and cheered for every runner, and made it through her 3 legs, while being concerned about getting us sick and waking us up with her coughs {how nice is that!? we were just as concerned for her}

Shhhhh....don't tell the Ragnar officials this, but we had two extra van mates that weren't registered to run! They snuck into several pictures along the way, so be looking for them in upcoming posts!

3 comments:

I feel so sad reading this! Sad, but happy you had such an epic time. I know that I am being dramatic, but I feel like compartment syndrome has ruined my life. Seriously.I am looking forward to reading your future posts. :-)